Social Psychology: The Self Flashcards
How do people form a self concept?
Similarly to how you form impressions of others,
What is noted by self perception theory?
People infer their own characteristics from their own observed behaviour when internal cues are weak or ambiguous, especially when we make these choices of our own free will
Apart from behaviour what else do people use to construct the self concept?
Thoughts and feelings (more important than behaviour), other peoples reactions (largest effect on people whose self-concepts are uncertain or still developing) and social comparison
What is meant by social comparison theory?
People compare themselves to others to see what characteristics make them unique
Explain the effects that can result from social comparison
Contrast effects have you believing you are the opposite to the person you are comparing yourself to (Master- Useless, Beginner - Best ever.) The assimilation effects claim when comparing yourself to someone a little worse than you then you will see yourself as a bit worse but if playing against someone a bit better you will see yourself a bit better.
What are the actor-observer differences in attribution
Attributing other’s behaviour to their personality while your own to the situation. This changes depending on if the valence is positive or negative.
What is meant by the self concept?
All of an individual’s knowledge about his or her personal qualities
Who is best to make comparisons to in the social comparison theory
those of the same skill level
What is meant by the over-justification effect
The over-justification effect states that we lose a part of our intrinsic motivation when we receive extrinsic motivation.
Why do we see others as different?
Differences in cues and knowledge (e.g: we don’t have access to inner thoughts) and differences in inferences.
What is meant by self-aspects?
Summaries of a person’s beliefs about the self in SPECIFIC domains, roles or activities. The way we see ourselves changes over situations and roles and depends on the self-aspect.
What is meant by self schema?
Core characteristics that a person believes characterizes him or her across situations.
Why do people look for self schema?
People believe that they have a coherent and stable self. Looking for confirmation of self-schemas help with this.
Why do people tend to not notice the contradiction between their different selves?
Because there is only one self there at the time. People also tend to remember the memories that are coherent with the idea they have about their self
How does culture affect the construction of the self?
Individualistic cultures view their self as more stable while collectivist view it as changing. People in collectivistic cultures also construct their self bases more on the situation and the relations.
What is meant by self esteem?
Self-esteem is an individual’s positive or negative evaluation of himself.
What is meant by self enhancing bias and what effect does it have on self evaluation?
Self-enhancing bias is the tendency to gather or interpret information concerning the self in a way that leads to overly positive evaluations. People generally rate themselves higher than average on traits. People have a desire to view themselves in a positive light
What is meant by self complexity?
Self-complexity is the extent to which a person possesses many and diverse self-aspects.
Describe the model of self-evaluation maintenance
The model of self-evaluation maintenance is a theory outlining the conditions under which people’s self-esteem will be maintained or will suffer based on social comparisons to close or distant others. The closer someone is to us, the greater the chance for social comparison.
How can social comparison raise our self esteem
Comparing your appearance to someone doing an orange walk. But actually by comparing ourselves to someone who performed worse.
What is meant by self regulation?
Efforts to control one’s behaviour in line with internal or external standards.
How does culture affect how we receive information on ourselves?
People in individualistic cultures are more susceptible to positive information and people in collectivistic cultures are more susceptible to negative information.
How does gender influence the factors which impact our self esteem?
Men’s self-esteem is more influences by successes or failures and women’s self-esteem is more influenced by connectedness.
What do emotions depend on in an event?
The perceivers interpretation of events
